Restoring another Hammer Films production to its former glory, Synapse Films give Peter Sasdy's COUNTESS DRACULA (1971) her hi-def debut! Time: Medieval. The peasants of a small Hungarian town find themselves with a shortage of attractive young girls; it seems all their teenage virgins are turning up missing! Could it have something to do with Countess Elisabeth, a vain, petty woman whose castle overlooks the village? She does have an awfully large bathtub... This is Hammer's stab at the Countess Bathory tale, a 16th Century aristocrat who is said to have bathed in blood for its purported regenerative properties. Ingrid Pitt essays the title role, in both aged and youthful form, in both clothed and unclothed form. Originally panned by fans expecting another Dracula series installment, the film has slowly gained a bit of a following -- and fans will be well-served by Synapse's upcoming release. Besides the video upgrade (MGM's old DVD wasn't even anamorphic), the disc will port over the commentary with director, star and screenwriter, in addition to a new Pitt featurette, audio interview, stills and trailers.

Owning your own video company gets us a lot of submissions from independent filmmakers. We get upwards of 5-10 a week, really. Most submissions, honestly, are passed over because of quality reasons or that we just cannot get our distributor to be interested in soliciting certain ones. But, sometimes, independent productions catch our eye because of production value, plot, acting, etc. Some are just SO well done, that we have to have them to release in-between our higher profile titles. Even though we know independent films are an amazingly "hard" sell for a lot of distributors, because of the low budget "shot on video" aspect of most of them, we like to pick some to proudly have under our label. WORM is one such production. My business partner, Jerry Chandler, got the submission in the office not long ago, and immediately called me and said, "Don, you HAVE to watch this one. This one's a keeper." And, I couldn't agree more. Independent films these days are a mixed bag, but we are very happy that many of Synapse's fans are giving them a chance and enjoying them. Expect WORM to be added to the Synapse Films catalog shortly... Solicitation coming soon. Also, PROM NIGHT solicitation coming very, very soon as well (because I know some folks will just hijack the comments here and ask about it (or another similar upcoming title)!

It's really fun. It has charismatic leads who can actually act, a plot with elements of sci-fi, horror, and a sense of humor. It starts out harmless enough, like a strange sci-fi film that turns completely batshit crazy in the last half. Such a nice surprise. And it's even nuttier that the film was made entirely without a script and mostly improvisation. And the commentary is really fun to listen to, as well.

We're trying to fix up the master for TENEBRAE right now, and we have a neat surprise for PHENOMENA to be included. For SUSPIRIA, still working on getting the negative scanned... whew, what a nightmare it has been with that title, but we just want to do it right!

RE: Whether the Argento titles will be priced like the Demons titles even if they ultimately aren't released as steelbooks.

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Originally Posted by Synapse Films

Right now we are working on all the Argento titles and unlike what Lee said, there are many other factors, including licensing fees just to acquire the titles, which have to be considered as part of the price. Since the titles are not completely done, and the costs involved with each future Argento release are certainly not all invoiced yet, we do not know the answer to that question.

In light of all the discussion, etc. regarding SUSPIRIA and our announcement last year that we were trying to get a 2K scan of original materials, I've decided to give you all a quick update. It's been a long, very hard, road to get where we are today with this project but this picture speaks much louder than any words (from us, or from those who think they know all there is to know about us) right now. More info to come soon enough, but we're ready to knock your socks off in 2015.

In light of all the discussion, etc. regarding SUSPIRIA and our announcement last year that we were trying to get a 2K scan of original materials, I've decided to give you all a quick update. It's been a long, very hard, road to get where we are today with this project but this picture speaks much louder than any words (from us, or from those who think they know all there is to know about us) right now. More info to come soon enough, but we're ready to knock your socks off in 2015.

Our journey has JUST begun... But considering all the red tape (no pun intended with the content of this picture, of course) that we had to go through, we're relieved we have finally gotten this far. We could write an entire book on what has happened in the last year to get where we are today with this.

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Originally Posted by Synapse Films

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Assuming it doesn't have the usual Italian CRT noise, this is amazing news

Simon, we did this in conjunction with Technicolor Rome and Technicolor LA... It was never in the hands of that "other" Italian lab.

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Originally Posted by Synapse Films

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And you are including the Italian audio too right?

Simon, that's the plan, but please give us some time to actually get the picture element done first! We've got a long road ahead of us...

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Originally Posted by Synapse Films

Right now, my goal is to analyze the 4K scan files, get them QC'd, assembled, base corrected and see how much restoration may be necessary on the neg, since it hasn't really been touched in a while. Technicolor was pleased with the results, but I have to have a look myself as soon as possible... I'm excited to get started. This is going to be the project of my lifetime, I think. My bucket list movie. I havent been this excited since doing NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.